Podcast

In my final year of university, it was requested for The Practice of Film Criticism module that I make a podcast discussing a film of my choice. I chose A Quiet Place in which we discussed sound and performance. Podcast Description: In this instalment of the podcast, myself and José Arroyo discuss John Krasinski’s ‘A Quiet Place’ (2018). We explore the film’s use of sound and its performances, whilst also considering how the film is received upon multiple viewings. Agreeing that the film is very effective in its ambitions, we consider how the cinematography creates lasting shots that remain with the audience after having left the cinema. Whilst examining sound to be the principal success of the film, we comment on how the film creates an immersive experience exploiting horror conventions in order to provoke a physical reaction from its audience. Considering the issues that we encountered on a second viewing of the film, we discuss the film’s merits and faults in order to question: does the film have the capability to last multiple viewings? To conclude we consider areas for further exploration. We contemplate how the senses contribute to the pleasures of multiple viewings and consider how the audience has been positioned to react. The representation of disability through the presentation of the daughter is another avenue to pursue. Furthermore, the role of the creature and the choices that have been made in terms of its depiction is interesting to explore: with a comparison to Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018), we ponder how sound has been used similarly in association with a creature but suggesting a different intention of the reactions expected from the audience.